


Runner

by SometimesIUpdateThis



Series: The Nights [2]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-02 05:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11502621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SometimesIUpdateThis/pseuds/SometimesIUpdateThis
Summary: Set during Chorus Era.Wash runs and he runs a lot.  He uses his literal runs to emotionally run from his problems; he doesn’t like to think about PFL and the people he’s lost.  These thoughts finally get to him one night.





	Runner

        Washington had a love/hate relationship with the nighttime. There was no idiotic banter to be had with anyone from either the red team or the blue team and while that was nice, it meant that he was alone with nothing else but his thoughts. Being a paranoid ex-military guy, doing patrols and securing the perimeter only kept his attention for so long. Sleep was something that had eluded him for a long time now, making it pointless to head back to base and try. He was going to have these thoughts no matter where he was and better for him to be and out about than in his cot, staring pointlessly up at the ceiling. The only thing he could do for a longer amount of time that staved off his memories was exercise. There was no one around to chide him for pushing himself too hard and there was also no one to slow him down or hold him back either. He was truly free to do his physical regimen the way he liked even if his mind wasn’t free to wander.

  
        So he ran and he ran a lot. Washington ran from his problems, he ran far and for as long as he could. At the Mother of Invention, he was just a rookie and it was a part of his training, it meant nothing then… at first. He wasn’t in Blood Gulch long and he was on a mission anyways so the need to run wasn’t present. While he was haunted by the ghosts of former friends, no, teammates past, it was nothing compared to what was to come. The desert where they found Tucker was probably the most challenging for a myriad of reasons. The terrain was difficult to begin with; the desert sand pooled around him, pulling him in. The sinking feeling, always the sinking feeling, he couldn't seem to escape it. He felt like he was constantly drowning, being pushed deeper and deeper by the weight of his guilt. Maine’s betrayal had been too much and on top of everything he knew on account of Epsilon and everything that had happened since, it had taken him a while to stabilize. He couldn’t cope for the longest time and one night he just took off. The sand was difficult under his feet but he felt like he had finally regained some semblance of control, like if he kept at it maybe he could outrun his thoughts.

  
        Things were getting better for him, he’d found a new team among his current company but then that was asking for too much as well when they had crashed on Chorus. Separated and reunited, it was tumultuous but he remained fine through it all because it meant he had more important things to think about than his past. If he let himself indulge in the self-destructive nature of his mind, it meant he had lost sight of what was important and it was too dire to go that route. Wash didn’t know much about life but he knew one thing: you can’t run forever. Try as you might, whatever it is you’re running from, it’ll catch up with you one day. What matters then isn’t what it is you’re running from so much as how you choose to confront it. Unfortunately for the former freelancer, tonight was that night.

  
        He wasn’t far from blue base when he felt himself start to waiver.

  
        “Hey North…” Washington breathed a sigh into the night air.

  
        “Hey York.”

  
        He didn’t do this often. Tonight he decided to succumb to what his conscience had been begging him to do for ages.

  
        “I know it’s been a while. God, I really miss you guys. It’s been hard here without you both.” He paused, this was slightly awkward but sometimes it helped to just sit there, acknowledge his circumstances and confront his feelings. He kept them buried most days but as much as he wanted to will all those memories away, it was never going to happen.

  
        “You’d be happy, York. Carolina’s alive. She’s different though, much angrier… maybe you wouldn’t be so thrilled to see her the way she is now.”

  
        Wash’d stopped his late night run in favor of sitting down on the valley floor, gazing up at the night sky. He focused his attention on a semi-bright star twinkling back at him, imploring him to continue.

  
        “I miss whenever you’d cut between the two of us anytime things got heated. She’s less intimidating when you’re around.” He tried to interject some humor but it felt wrong so instead he shook his head, carrying on.

  
        “Anyways, that’s beside the point. I’m not really sure what to say here, honestly. I think to myself frequently how it should be either of you, if not both, sitting here alive instead of me. Practically everyone was more qualified at every aspect of Project Freelancer and it’s not fair to anyone that I’m here instead of you. I would give anything to see you play a stupid prank on me again, York, and to have you step in and reprimand him, North. Instead, I’m stuck here with…”

  
        He hesitated, unsure of what to call the reds and blues. ‘Simulation troopers’ was too austere, he’d known them for far too long to be so formal with a group of soldiers who were alive out of sheer luck. Though the same could be said for him. While Caboose considered him a friend, that was also Caboose. Could he call them friends and have it be reciprocated by everyone? Weren’t the blues technically supposed to be his subordinates? In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter what he said in that instant because no one was around to hear it, but it mattered to him. He considered a few people in Project Freelancer his friends, but either they turned on him or they were gone now.

  
        “I’m not sure what they are to me yet but I think you’d like them, York. Their sense of humor is as reckless as yours and believe me, North, you’d develop an exasperated fondness for them because of it. I know I have.” Washington didn’t want to care for them the way North would, but he did want them to be able to stand on their own. They’d gone through a world of shit too in their own ways and damn if he didn’t find himself a little protective of them. Especially Caboose. He saw potential in Tucker and as eyebrow-raising as Donut’s remarks were sometimes, he was pretty capable too. Each of the soldiers had something to them and it reminded Wash of the unique characteristics of everyone involved with Freelancer. It reminded him of the few good times they had.

  
        “I’m not a leader but they look to me like I am. The truth is: I’m making it up as I go. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I finally feel in control… like I can help. Epsilon was the catalyst and I finally feel like I’m in a place where I can do something about the way they treated us.”

  
        He sighed, bowing his head and exhaling shakily, watching his breath fog up and curl in the breeze quietly.

  
        “None of what I do now will bring either of you back and I’m sorry for that but… I hope I do you proud. I hope I can live my life in a way that yours weren’t wasted. I miss you both so fucking much.”

  
        Taking a moment to collect himself, he did something he’d never done before.

  
        “Hey Maine. I miss you, buddy.”

  
        In all of the times he had “talked” to his former associates, he had never once reached out to Maine. His loss had been the hardest. While Washington had arguably one of the worst experiences in Project Freelancer, Maine’s encounter with the military program had to be the one contesting his own for that title.

  
        “I’m sorry. For everything. There’s so much I want to say to you, so much I wanted to say to you. I was angry at you for a long time because I kept thinking ‘even if I had said any of this stuff to him then, would it have made a difference?’ And the answer is ‘no.’ But I see now it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t your fault. We were both victims of something far beyond our reach and you got the worst of it. Everything that happened, it wasn’t you, it was your AI and I’m extremely sorry it took me a while to see that.”

  
        He exhaled shakily, pulling his knees towards his chest, resting his head atop them.

  
        “I miss you. I wish people had gotten to know you the way I had. I was lucky to know you before… well, everything. I always loved that you were never much for words just because every time you ever said anything to me, it meant that much more.”  
Washington smiled bittersweetly to himself recalling the first time he tried moonshine and the grimace he sported caused the longest bout of laughter he’d ever heard from the larger freelancer.

  
        “I gotta cut this short though, I’m not ready to do this with you yet, it hurts too much still. I just wanted you to know that I’m not angry with you anymore, Maine.”

  
        Wash closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He felt some of the weight alleviate off his chest and he felt better than he had in a long time. He forgot that running was a temporary relief, that it was nothing compared to truly dealing with his issues properly.

  
        “Dude, what the fuck are you doing?”

  
        And all of the calm that had washed over him dissipated in that instant. “Tucker! W-what are you doing awake at this time?”

  
        “Trolling for ladies.” He deadpanned. “Caboose’s snoring was horrendous tonight and when I went to go smother him with his own pillow, I noticed you weren’t in your room. Thought Sarge might’ve kidnapped you or some shit so I went out looking. And then I found you just sitting here mumbling to yourself. Like, do you know how crazy you look right now, man? You were kinda freaking me out.”

  
        The ex-freelancer tensed up, unsure of what or how much Tucker had heard. “I’m not crazy. I was just doing my nightly run.”

  
        “By sitting here. On the grass. Yeah, excuse me if I don’t believe you.”

  
        Wash inhaled sharply, his head snapping in Tucker’s general direction when he sensed the younger soldier sitting down next to him. “People get tired when they exercise. You know that better than anyone else.”

  
        “Ohohoho, I hit a nerve, didn’t I? Aw man, you are always so serious, you need to learn to just chill out for a second. I can help with that.” The aqua soldier leaned in close, wagging his eyebrows suggestively.

  
        Washington rolled his eyes, pushing Tucker’s face away. “And you’re not serious enough, get away from me. I was…”

  
        “I heard a little bit.” Washington opened his mouth to berate the other soldier for encroaching on his privacy when Tucker cut him off. “I know, but listen, it wasn’t my fault! I wasn’t trying to listen in, I really was just trying to see where you were and then I found you here. I caught the tail end of it, that’s all, I swear!” He was raising his arms defensively. “I didn’t mean to. I promise.”

  
        Wash nodded at him curtly, looking in the opposite direction. Even if he hadn’t heard much, he’d heard the most personal part of it all.

  
        Tucker’s brows furrowed, his voice taking on a more serious tone. “Wash. Hey, Wash, look at me.”

  
        When the ex-freelancer refused, Tucker pressed on.

  
        “It’s okay.” He huffed. “Jesus dude, I can’t believe you’re gonna make me do this.”

  
        He slid his hand until it was covering Wash’s own, nestled between both their bodies. He squeezed it reassuringly, trying to assuage some of the tension hanging in the moment. With his free hand, he tipped Wash’s face towards himself with two fingers tucked underneath his chin. “You’ve been through some shit and I understand it’s difficult to talk about. You’re not one to share and I don’t blame you for it either, I know that in this life, we gotta do whatever it is we need to keep ourselves sane. You talk to dead people, Caboose pretends Church is his best friend, and because of a serious lack of ladies, we bone.”

  
        Washington stared at him incredulously. “Unbelievable.”

  
        Tucker scrambled to keep Wash from pulling away. “Alright, sorry, sorry, I’ll knock it off. I’m doing a shitty job here, but all I’m trying to say is: you could do a ton of things to keep yourself from thinking about what happened back then and I guarantee you that a lot of those ideas would be far worse for you than sitting here talking to your friends. Whatever went down when Freelancer was still active, it wasn’t your fault and you guys really were friends regardless of what’s happened since. You lost some people who were really close to you and that sucks, dude, but you gotta do whatever it is that makes you want to get up and fight another day. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to keep the memory alive of people we care about and remember them for who they were.”

  
        By this point, Tucker had removed his fingers from the other soldier’s jaw, choosing instead to play with one of his own dreadlocks. He wasn’t as allergic to emotional talks as some of his friends but being this candid was difficult for him nonetheless. “I haven’t seen my son in years. I don’t know where he is or whether he’s still alive and short of beating myself up for being a shit parent, I talk to him too. A lot. I tell him how my day’s going, how annoying red team can be, how I wish I’d been the one to find Freckles. I tell him stupid shit, I tell him serious shit, but it’s all I have. I get it. You put those words out there because you hope they’ll reach their ears somehow, against all odds. It gives us hope, something to look forward to because let’s be honest, our lives are shit and this is how we get by. Anyways, all I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry for catching you off guard but don’t be embarrassed, man. Guys like us… we’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Our reactions are our battle scars and our lives are the war stories.”

  
        It was in that moment that Washington realized Tucker wasn’t the same man he met back in the desert and he was grateful for it. While their …arrangement had started off as a no-strings attached sort of agreement, they’d quickly discarded it in favor of an actual relationship and it was nice to have someone. Even if that someone was Tucker. He leaned in and kissed the aqua soldier’s temple, lingering there for a moment. “Thank you. I needed to hear that more than you know.”

  
        Tucker grinned, nudging him playfully. “And I’d like to hear you yell my name in bed. Bow chicka bow wow.”

  
        Washington groaned in exasperation, grinning somewhat despite himself. “You are killing the moment.”

  
        Tucker pecked him quickly, smiling into the kiss. “Yet it doesn’t really seem to bother you.”

  
        Forgoing a response in favor of deepening the kiss, Washington instead took Tucker’s face into his hands. He poured all the emotion he could muster into the way his tongue explored the aqua soldier’s mouth. It was a firm kiss, exploratory and tinged with lust yet still a little bit formal. They pulled apart after a few more beats, Wash resting his forehead against Tucker’s. With a shaky breath and his eyes still closed, he muttered a barely audible, “Stay with me. I’ll try not to run anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I wrote probably about two years ago at this point but for whatever reason, I never posted it. I still kind of like the story itself so I figured I'd go ahead and share it. Here's hoping you all enjoy! :) As always, thank you for all the feedback in whichever way you choose to leave it.


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